


on reunion

by treescape



Series: to have and to hold [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Obi-Wan pulls the strings behind the scenes, Possessive Anakin Skywalker, Suitless Darth Vader, Three years post-Revenge of the Sith, Vaderwan, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27671035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treescape/pseuds/treescape
Summary: Obi-Wan didn’t know that he would ever grow accustomed to the vulnerability of reunion. After days spent restless and alone, Anakin’s return to proximal focus in his mind brought relief and dread in equal measure, twin blades of ice between his ribs. It was always difficult not to wonder just how much of Anakin he might recognizethistime.After all, Obi-Wan himself had once come home to Coruscant to find his world in pieces and Anakin nearly beyond reach. Three years weren’t enough to dampen that despair. Threedecadeswouldn’t be enough.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Vader
Series: to have and to hold [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970581
Comments: 21
Kudos: 224





	on reunion

**Author's Note:**

> This follows [ to have and to hold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26010349) and [an anatomy of want](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27027052), and probably makes more sense if you've read those, but might work as a standalone as well. The most important background to know is that Mustafar went a little differently and Obi-Wan gave himself to Anakin as a distraction to hide Leia and Luke’s existence from him. Obi-Wan is playing a very long game.

Obi-Wan didn’t know that he would ever grow accustomed to the vulnerability of reunion. After days spent restless and alone, Anakin’s return to proximal focus in his mind brought relief and dread in equal measure, twin blades of ice between his ribs. It was always difficult not to wonder just how much of Anakin he might recognize _this_ time.

After all, Obi-Wan himself had once come home to Coruscant to find his world in pieces and Anakin nearly beyond reach. Three years weren’t enough to dampen that despair. Three _decades_ wouldn’t be enough.

He was in the dojo when Anakin re-emerged from wherever Sidious had sent him, but Obi-Wan had planned it that way. For all that the tenuous hum of the training blade was a reminder of how long had passed since he’d held his own saber, there was a simplicity to Soresu that centred him. When Obi-Wan could trust little else, he allowed himself to trust in the precision of its lines.

It was a good sign, Obi-Wan thought as he performed a biting series of deflections, that Anakin sought him out immediately. It was an even better one that Anakin came to a stop through the main door, shoulders pressing against the wall to one side to watch. He might have chosen to observe from the balcony above, where he could stand at a colder remove.

That distance would have been much harder to bridge than any that existed between planets.

Anakin felt tight and unsettled, a maelstrom bound together by sinew and bone, but he made no move to interrupt as Obi-Wan wound to a finish. Even with his eyes closed, Obi-Wan could feel Anakin’s gaze follow the bare curl of his shoulders, down the slope of his back and chest. The covetous heat of that scrutiny, the _weight_ of it—somehow, in a way, it centred him as much as the Soresu did, even as it felt like drowning.

When Obi-Wan lowered his blade and turned, it was to be anchored by slivers of blue. The narrowness to those eyes made him wonder what it was _Anakin_ feared when he was off doing Sidious’s bidding. Not that Obi-Wan would try to leave Coruscant without him, surely; they both knew that Obi-Wan’s prison was no physical thing.

Even blind to the children, Anakin had to know that his own want and need held a power over Obi-Wan that little else could.

“Will you join me?” he asked politely, as if this wasn’t the first time he had seen Anakin in days. As if he hadn’t lain awake through the greater darkness of each night, planning for every contingency of Anakin’s return.

As if he hadn’t been uncertain of what, exactly, he might find come back to him.

Anakin watched him for a time in silence, and then hesitated, if one who was so outwardly still could be said to pause. “No,” he finally said, and his voice held the same tightness as his mind. It wasn’t impatience, precisely, and it wasn’t anger; Obi-Wan wondered if it was just wishful thinking that he heard something resembling _loneliness_. “Not tonight.” He held out his hand, palm up and fingers slightly curled, at once a command and a request.

 _Suit yourself_ , Obi-Wan might have said another day, one that wasn’t burdened by return. Instead, he moved with careful intent—tucked his practice blade away on the appropriate stand, pulled his tunic over his head to stick, so quickly damp, against the sweat of his skin.

When he was done, he crossed the room to touch his fingers lightly to the centre of Anakin’s palm. Anakin’s fingers closed around them momentarily, tight and firm, before loosening to allow Obi-Wan to precede him from the room.

Obi-Wan tried not to think overlong on the relief that grip had brought.

The walk to their quarters was brief enough, and yet interminable all the same. Too quickly and not soon enough, the door to their sitting room settled definitively behind them. They were no more alone than in the dojo or the halls—no one would dare access this floor without express permission—but somehow it seemed so.

These rooms made it so easy to remember how little he had left.

“Have you eaten?” Anakin asked as he shrugged off his cloak and draped it over the back of one chair. His words were as casual as his movements, which was to say they were _too_ casual, forced, as if he was trying too hard to unravel a week’s separation all at once.

Obi-Wan could detect an undercurrent of hope, there, and something of uncertainty. They were jagged, broken things, but still there.

“No,” he said simply, and crossed idly to his own chair. His cloak mirrored Anakin’s over the back, light to dark. “I waited for you.”

Something seemed to ease in Anakin at the admission—a true easing, not the contrived one of just a moment ago. It eased something in Obi-Wan in turn, if there could ever be said to exist true _easiness_ between them these days. It was enough to make him wonder—just a little, just enough—if the effortless camaraderie of their past was just a dream. Perhaps they had always been like this. Perhaps they had ever been somehow off-kilter, two halves torn apart by a schism too deep. Perhaps there had never been trust, or faith, though certainly there had been love.

For a moment, Obi-Wan pressed his hands into the folds of his own cloak, burying his fingers in its depths. He couldn’t say if he was trying to anchor the fabric, or himself, or something else entirely. A past. A dream. A possible future of light that was probably long out of his reach.

Such thoughts wouldn’t do. The past couldn’t be brought back to life, but dreams could be dreamed again. Futures could be made and chasms bridged, even if only provisionally. Obi-Wan wasn't entirely certain he had the right to believe that, anymore, but he would proceed as if he did.

He could do nothing less.

Carefully he circled around, until he came to a stop at Anakin’s side.

“Perhaps,” he said slowly, his words matter-of-fact, “dinner could wait.” He tucked the fingers of one hand against Anakin’s waist, pressed them against the smooth texture of robes and the body beneath. Later, he would spend long days drawing out details of Anakin’s absence. He would pick them out bit by bit, a morass of expressions and emotions and offhand remarks. He might never learn it all, but he would learn enough to make use of, somehow.

But not tonight.

Tonight, he would close his eyes against the brush of fingers at his jaw, open them to the press of lips against the sweep of his temple. In such moments, Obi-Wan might almost fear that Anakin held him more tightly than he held Anakin, but for the possessiveness in those lips.

He hadn’t known, once, that he could crave such things from Anakin. That seemed unfathomable, now.

“You missed me,” Anakin whispered, the words fierce and triumphant on Obi-Wan’s skin, but Obi-Wan knew the truth. The delight in that voice, dark and satisfied, revealed his own triumph just as much as Anakin’s. _More_.

“Come to bed, Anakin.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This is an ongoing series which will have nonlinear instalments; I’m working on part 4 right now, which will take us back to Obi-Wan and Vaderkin’s first time (with thanks to the anon who prompted this ❤️).
> 
> I’m [treescape](https://treescape.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you ever want to come say hi or drop a prompt!


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